Became the Queen of the Legion

“So Ludas still refuses to help us?!”

“Th-that’s not it. He said he could provide mercenaries and supplies…”

“Is that all?!”

Orc Baron Zieg. He slammed the armrest of the chair he was sitting on, enraged by his subordinate’s report.

He had hoped for help from Hobgoblin Count Ludas, who was a neighbor and on friendly terms, but Ludas was also in no position to help him freely.

“These beasts are not just simple monsters!”

There was a reason for his sensitive reaction.

Unidentified demonic beasts that suddenly emerged from the northern unexplored lands and attacked the eastern part of the territory. Their scale and combat power were alarming.

“You all know. If all the reports are true, these aren’t just a herd of beasts. They’re an army. One that’s determined to kill us and has invaded meticulously!”

“My lord. Even so, if we properly gather our army and fight, we won’t be one-sidedly pushed back by such monsters.”

While Zieg, who had unified and ruled the Orcs of the area, trembled in fear unlike an Orc warrior, many of his subordinates still thought they could fight.

Subordinates with more warrior’s fighting spirit than political experience thought that the consecutive fall of the villages in the east was simply due to being caught off guard by unfamiliar enemies, and believed they could win if they fought again.

“Bi-big trouble! The eastern cities are all under attack!”

But that thought didn’t last long.

Rather, an even larger number of massive demonic beasts than before began attacking not only the villages but also the large towns that could be called cities within the territory.

“St-stop them! If we lose those places, our territory will be cut in half!”

Zieg, startled, jumped up from his seat and ordered to stop the monsters by any means necessary.

Troops scraped together from the territory and mercenaries arranged by Ludas.

The demon race allied forces thus assembled hurriedly set out for the battlefield to stop the beasts.

“The troops mobilized from this small territory seem to number over 5,000. I suppose this is because Orcs are a warrior race where everyone, regardless of age or gender, can fight.”

And all these movements were being observed by the legion’s scout troops that had already dominated the skies.

The Queen, realizing that the entire force mobilized by Zieg was within her calculations, prepared for a full-scale battle instead of retreating.

Naturally, a large-scale battle where the two forces would clash head-on was being prepared.

It was a war between the Orc lord, an indigenous power that had ruled the area since ancient times, and the newly born monsters of the borderlands.

“These creatures are different from ordinary demonic beasts. Like a single army, the horde is divided into various types of monsters with different appearances according to their roles.”

“Hmm, this is similar to the information obtained from the Hobgoblin territory.”

Before properly facing the enemy, the allied forces composed of Orcs and mercenaries naturally had to share information about the enemy they were facing and plan how to fight.

In the demon realm where various monsters and demonic beasts live, the methods of dealing with them are all different.

“These are the most numerous ones. Fast crawling creatures. And there are fewer but much larger, tougher, and stronger ones. Lastly, there are those that throw poison-filled bombs like catapults from very far away.”

“Thinking about each one, they seem plausible, but with such creatures united as one, their destructive power…”

Everyone fell silent at the explanation of the Orc warrior who was a survivor.

Few among them had directly seen this unidentified demonic beast army, but just hearing the description and imagining was enough.

In fact, regardless of their internal composition, the setting of a large-scale demonic beast army rushing in like a black wave covering all visible land was shocking to those who had only played in the borderlands of the demon realm where relatively weak forces existed.

“…Don’t worry too much. After all, they’re just demonic beasts! We might be able to burn them all at once with large-scale spells when they swarm in!”

Of course, there were still those who hadn’t lost their fighting spirit.

Half of them were forcibly trying to raise morale, while the other half were genuinely confident that they could defeat such demonic beasts no matter how numerous, but in any case, there was nothing good about losing spirit when they had to fight.

“It’s worth a try. We’ve brought those who can use magic cannons, so it’s an opportunity to annihilate these monsters rushing in ignorantly.”

“Good. Everyone, prepare for battle.”

Zieg, who had been listening quietly to these conversations, ordered the battle.

As they led the army forward, the enemies pressuring the entire eastern part of the territory also took a step back, as if they already knew.

As if someone was watching and directing all of this. Some of the more perceptive among the demon race allied forces had already noticed this behavior, but they couldn’t dare suggest withdrawing the troops.

“By the way, what’s the name of these demonic beasts? It seems like we should have a name to refer to them by for convenience.”

It was then that one of the mercenary captains mentioned the name of the enemies.

Even though some time had passed since the monsters of the borderlands revealed themselves to this world, there was still no name for these new species of demonic beasts.

“Who cares. Just bugs.”

Of course, they had no reason to give them a proper name. For now, they were just called by derogatory terms. However, most of them were already certain in a corner of their hearts. If they lost this battle and the territory fell into the hands of the enemy, those beasts would no longer be called by derogatory terms, but by names filled with true feelings of terror.

* * *

“Unless they’re fools, they’ll have prepared proper countermeasures. I’m curious to see how well they’ve prepared.”

“Although the enemy numbers are few, some of the mercenaries who joined through the Hobgoblin territory are likely to be those who can handle tricky techniques.”

“Oh?”

I raised the corner of my mouth at Seira’s advice.

She probably can’t even guess, but I actually know to some extent as well.

Although it was a game, I’ve encountered many things while playing various civilizations in the demon realm.

Especially mercenaries who operate regardless of race are very common in the demon realm where fighting occurs all day long, and they roamed the battlefield using their own techniques or fighting methods.

Things like magic-operated cannons, temporary magic turrets, or large-scale defensive spells were very common.

“Then will we lose because of those mercenaries?”

“That’s impossible. The level of mercenaries operating in such borderlands would be about the same. I just mentioned it because you always want to win wars with minimal sacrifices, Your Majesty.”

But Seira, who had already conducted several wars with my soldiers, didn’t think at all that we would lose, just like me.

“In my opinion, even if we just push in without any plan, we’ll end up winning.”

“You also know that if we win like that, we’ll have to use most of the nutrients gained for troop recovery, and there won’t be much left over practically. No matter how I look at it, this territory isn’t nutritious enough to have to win through a war of attrition. So we need to win as overwhelmingly as possible.”

Since the enemy had mobilized their forces, I also mobilized forces to the extent of abandoning the cities we were almost completely occupying.

One of the things I had learned from experience was that rather than testing the waters, it was better to conserve strength by inputting overwhelming power from the start to crush them.

‘Are they guarding against the throwing troops with those with good mobility?’

I observed the enemy’s actions as they slowly formed their battle formation and understood their intentions.

It was clearly visible from the sky that while the main force armored in heavy armor held firm and faced our army, if our throwing troops attacked them from a distance, Centaurs and Orc riders on giant wolves would dash out to attack the throwing troops. In fact, that method they chose seems like the standard approach. If I were commanding the demon race allied forces in the game to face myself, I would try the same approach.

“Will it go as they want?”

[Alpha type, mobilization start]

But this world is no longer a game. It’s a one-time competition where lives and futures are at stake, with no saves, loads, or restarts possible.

I too am mobilizing new troops for this war. These newly created troops to distribute the excess magic power to the legion look similar to existing soldiers on the outside, but their entire bodies were made by injecting my cells filled with compressed magic power.

They are essentially like another type of my avatars.

Just being able to create a defensive barrier using the magic power contained in their bodies to defend against enemy attacks makes these new soldiers of a different class capable of trampling the enemies trying to push us back with clumsy firepower.